College steps up on diversity initiatives

Editorial by Kernel staff. E-mail [email protected]

As the university strives for diversity, UK’s College of Medicine has taken its own strides to address the issue within its department.

In August, the College of Medicine held its first program designed to engage minority students.

According to an August 30 Kernel article, the idea for the program came from Ima Ebong upon experiencing a similar program as an undergraduate at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

The program’s goal is to attract more under-represented minorities to the university. Ebong specifically stated that this included African-Americans, Hispanics and students from eastern Kentucky.

For many organizations, improving organizations is often limited to merely increasing the number of African-Americans within the organization. The College of Medicine should be commended for breaking this trend and striving to attract students from all backgrounds.

The program didn’t focus solely on attracting these demographics, but instead made sure to tie back to the College itself.

They allowed students the opportunity experience the life of a medical student for the day. In doing so, the program did an effective job of both drawing these students of different ethnicities and simultaneously giving them the experience of the College itself, allowing them to see if it was a good fit.

Programs like these are the ones that put UK on the map and push it in the right direction for the Top 20 Plan.

Students are able to compare it to similar programs at other colleges and experience the life of students in their potential situations.

By combining this and gearing it toward students of various ethnicities, the College of Medicine greatly improves its recruiting ability while also attracting a wide range of students.

UK should follow suit, as programs like these break the mold of traditional recruitment that the university as a whole has been following, ultimately resulting in a more diverse campus.